


Old Habits Die Hard

by sanbika



Series: Old Habits Die Hard [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, EDNOS, Eating Disorders, Gen, Langst, M/M, OCD, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2019-05-05 21:50:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14627745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanbika/pseuds/sanbika
Summary: Lance glanced down at a large bowl of space gelatin, blocky and trembling from the movements around the table.It wasn’t ideal given its green coloring or gel consistency. It tasted vaguely like a sweet chicken broth, off-putting but you got over it. It wasn’t tostones or yuca or black beans and rice but you played the hand you were dealt. Lance knew that all too well.





	Old Habits Die Hard

**Author's Note:**

> ***Trigger Warning - EDNOS; disordered eating in general***
> 
> ****This is a paid commission, meaning someone asked for me to write this, worked with me while writing it, and paid me for it. Please see the notes regarding this fic below from the person who requested it.****
> 
> NOTA BENE - I, figandmelon, appreciate the concern for my health but the italicized text below is not mine, as I wrote above, but is the sweet girl’s who commissioned the story. She had written a rough outline and gave a me a few paragraphs to start with. I don’t have food issues and this story is not meant to promote or romanticize disordered eating. I have written a follow-up story to this to prevent any idea that this is a good thing or that I approve this. That story was not commissioned by the girl but I felt I needed to write it. Also see the unedited text below - I had fixed the grammar but my patron has asked me to revise it to what she actually wrote! Sorry!
> 
> ———————————————————————————————————–
> 
> I am working out some food issues. Please dont take this as any kind of endorsment of disordered eating.
> 
> Food is delicious, Good, important, and healthy. Food is one of the necissities of life and it is amazing how many ways food is prepared tasty healthy, inventive good for the environment, etc. Food makes us strong and can heal us and is tied to our all culture and heritage and family.
> 
> If you start to feel diffrently about food or struggle wth eating, get help as soon as you can and avoid a long &dangerous road.
> 
> Please know this isn’t realy a headcanon I have for Lance. I see him feeling like this, yes. But I had these feelings when I was a kid and my last years in school when I had no money to buy food and just ate whatever we threw out at work. This is my way of letting go of that. Thanks.

Lance glanced down at a large bowl of space gelatin, blocky and trembling from the movements around the table.

It wasn’t ideal given its green coloring or gel consistency. It tasted vaguely like a sweet chicken broth, off-putting but you got over it. It wasn’t tostones or yuca or black beans and rice but you played the hand you were dealt. Lance knew that all too well.

For all of its drawbacks, the goo sure was plentiful. It was dispensed from hoses, for quiznak’s sake. And it doubled as a hydration source.

Food was a spartan necessity for Alteans; their pleasures tended to indulge their senses of touch (shape shifting in micro and macro ways was both a talent and physically enjoyable, which Lance occasionally liked to daydream about…alone if you catch the drift) and superior sight (apparently double pupils and triple retinas and lenses gave them something like super mega HD vision and millions of colors to delight in) rather than taste. Allura and Coran usually ate the goo quickly and with oh-so-perfect manners.

Everyone was eating and chatting. He lifted the spoon and licked it but felt his throat seize before dropping it into the bowl. This wasn’t going to work. And if that was the case Lance was going to do what he did best. Make a scene.

“Princess, aren’t you feeling tired?”

Allura looked up at Lance’s raised voice interrupting her quiet interlude with Shiro. “No Lance,” she said slowly, “are you? I thought the training session had an appropriate difficulty level. Perhaps you-”

“Well you should be cuz you’ve been running through my mind all day.” Finger guns. Wink. Lecherous smile. Ugh, he was the worst.

The silence was actually painful and the brunette felt all kinds of first and secondhand embarrassment for himself. But it was worth it not to worry the others needlessly.

“LANCE, why?!”

“Really, why though?”

“Come on buddy, you’re still on this?”

Allura was speechless but the twitch in her eye spoke volumes. Coran looked torn between laughing at the pun (he loved puns, dad jokes, basically anything that would make the average person or alien groan) and shaking his finger at the disrespect.

Pidge stood up with her bowl and laptop balanced in some unholy manner, her nose curled in disgust. “Well.. I’m off to my room. If I stay here for another of Lance’s pick up fails, I’ll lose my appetite and I’m a growing teen.” She hurried off still muttering. So quick to judge, Pidge?

Lance felt the red flush of shame creep up his neck. But if this was going to work, he’d need to go all in.

“Aww come on guys! I can’t be the only who sees that Allura and I are soulmates. I mean she’s like my catnip! Uhh, lion nip?”

A chorus of groans and complaints was his response. Allura was aghast, forming words without speaking, clearly ready to unleash fury on the unfortunate paladin.

But with perfect timing Coran escorted her away, clearing their perfectly clean bowls and sending an apologetic half-smile to the blue paladin. “This way, Allura, some space will do us all a world of good so we can come back and practice our flight drills in excellent form tomorrow. Space will clear our heads, isn’t that right Lance?”

The pilot wanted to laugh at the redhead’s twitching mustache but couldn’t. He just summoned an awkward smile/grimace and turned to see how well his plan was working.

Keith had started in on his second bowl of goop, eating so quickly that Lance had to look away before his stomach turned. Guess that desert shack didn’t have an etiquette book after all.

Hunk had scooted off to start dishes in the kitchen. He didn’t handle conflict too well. Man, Lance would have to do something really nice for him to make up for this ridiculousness. Maybe he could work with Pidge to set up some solo interspace video chat time with his alien rock girlfriend….

Shiro was already gone. Huh. He must actually have a crush on Allura and truly not be able to hear even the lamest of pick-up lines meant for her with any modicum of dignity. Or he must have wanted to kill Lance for the sheer audacity of hitting on the last known survivor of her species while aware it was an unrequited crush.

Yeah, Lance didn’t feel great about that either but he didn’t exactly want to tell the other Paladins that he couldn’t eat sometimes.

After Keith had downed the last of his food, he pushed his chair back and strode off with that permanent aggression to clean his bowl.

Lance noticed the faint eye roll and scoff as he walked past him and added that to all the other chips on the shoulder. Well, he was sitting with his spoon up and mouth open like some elementary school kid. He tried to adopt a more effortlessly cool pose but the hothead had crossed the room already and had his back to him.

That went well. Lance McClain, ruiner of dinner parties and cargo pilot extraordinaire.

He wilted a little as he felt the exertion of the day’s exercises. He hadn’t managed much that morning either. He needed to eat but he just… couldn’t.

Every time he lifted that spoon, he wondered if Javier had eaten dinner yet. Or if he’d gone to bed after drinking a cup of water so the little ones, Yany and cousin Carlito could. If Uncle Jorge had found a workplace that would hire him despite his disability. If Mama was taking care of herself.

Had Elisa managed to find a summer job to help Mama stretch her stamps? Were the food pantries any good this summer? Pidge and Hunk had figured out that it was sometime in July, Lance couldn’t remember. All he knew was his siblings didn’t get supplemental meals from school in July. In summer, they were on their own.

He lifted the spoon again but his growling stomach started roiling with nausea. He lowered the spoon. Of course he could have food whenever he wanted. Of course it would be like that.

Despite being the shittiest person in his family, he had found a nice cushy place where food was so plentiful, it wasn’t even a thought. People could complain about it. And even if he hadn’t found Blue, if he had been at the Garrison, he would have had three perfectly rationed, calculated, and healthy if tasteless meals plus snacks whenever he wanted.

Getting into the Garrison had been a promise. He would make it out and provide for his whole family. Even those teasing cousins who gave him a hard time about how tall and lanky he was.

They all had sacrificed enough that his absence was a loss. Mama and Papa had needed to work so hard just to pay for the testing. Now that he had effectively dropped out, all his studying and scholarships, all of his family’s money, stretched so thin with so many needs, it was all for nothing.

If he at least had dropped out and gone home, he could work. He could contribute. He could make Javier and Mama eat at least. Here his destiny was to save the world or die trying but at his family’s expense.

Always at his family’s expense.

Lance slammed the table with his closed fist, willing his frustration and other more painful things to dry up. He swallowed to prevent the nausea from making him sicker but feelings of bitterness and shame drew more tears out of him.

He dropped his head over the full, jiggling bowl. Twisting his hair between his fingers, he imagined it with cartoon eyes and a smile but it didn’t help.

He was a Paladin of Voltron. He needed to be strong to defeat Zarkon and help his family. He needed to eat.

Lance lifted the spoon from the table. He choked down a bite and clamped long brown fingers over his wide mouth. He managed to keep it down but it was a close thing.

Rather than better, he felt worse, like he had run a marathon without water. His throat burned as if the space goo was stuck in it. A headache came on around his temples. His eyes watered.

Had Mama even eaten today? Would she? Could she? Was there even food in the house?

Lance rose quickly. Thick emotion warped the air around him and he swallowed hard against his sadness. He threw the space goo in a trash receptacle and left the bowl on the table. It was a dick move but would throw off any suspicions for now. And Hunk, bless his sweet angelic nature, wouldn’t hold it against him.

Normally he would share his food with the mice but they were too damn chummy with Allura and if they told her that he skipped a whole meal, he’d definitely be questioned.

And at this point he wasn’t sure what would help him, if anything even could.

He loped off towards Blue in a haze, one hand firmly clenched around his mouth and the other around his aching stomach. He missed his mother terribly and his lion was the closest thing to her. Just sitting next to her was all he wanted.

Lance didn’t see Keith walk out from the kitchen doorway and pick up his bowl. The red paladin’s face was neutral but his keen eyes were lit with worry and disbelief.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my [tumblr!](https://figandmelon.tumblr.com)


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